Have you felt like you’ve wanted to start a blog? Maybe you want to share your story or you want to teach the public a skill or share and vent about your life.

Whatever your reason may be, blogging is an excellent outlet that you can use to relieve stress, connect with others, tell your story, cultivate an audience, and make money.

Here’s how my story started…

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How Did I Get Started Blogging?

I was working in another business, running a busy ecommerce store. The store was great and it had been running for a few years.

I actually left my 9 to 5 to operate the store full-time. I was looking to transition out of store operation because it was really eating away at my life.

A lot of people actually dream about running a successful online store but it can really take over your life.

I was feeling less fulfilled, spending less doing things I loved, neglecting my family, it was just not working so, I sold the store!

Prior to that, I saw a random Pinterest pin in my feed about blogging. The pin talked about a blogger that was making money blogging.

Running my store, I had worked with bloggers and never thought of bloggers being able to earn a full-time income.

I thought it was awesome to do something enjoyable and get paid for it, working on your own schedule, flexibly, enjoying a lot of the same perks I had with my online store.

So, I started my blog a few months before the sale of my ecommerce business and that’s how my story began.

I started earning thousands per month after my 4th month of blogging and by month 9, I hit five figures that month!

Everything was falling into place with the blog. So much so, that I decided to start another blog in a different niche, personal finance. My first blog was about making money online. While in my 9 to 5, I researched the heck out of money-making online opportunities.

I really was not happy in that 9 to 5 job and was trying desperately to find an income source to replace it, for good.

So, I did research and I researched some more and through all that, I learned about ecommerce which is how I was able to break into entrepreneurship life.

How Do I Make $10,000+ Per Month Blogging?

There are several ways you can monetize your blog and I explore them all!

Ads

Sponsorships

Your products and services

Affiliate marketing

I will go into this more, down below, so you know how each income source works, what to expect money-wise and other helpful tips. First, let me share what exactly blogging is about.

What is a Blog?

A blog is a website. It’s a website that you start talking to the general public about anything you want. It’s cool because you don’t need to have specialized knowledge or expertise or any specific skills really. Anybody can start a blog and people start blogging for different reasons:

An outlet to express themselves, vent, etc.

A way to teach and educate others about a topic

An avenue to make money (to replace their 9 to 5, or make extra money on the side)

When I started blogging, I was totally clueless. I learned everything I know from Pinterest as I was blogging, hehe. I knew it was interesting to me and so I dove in. With a teeny investment of under $4/month, it was a no brainer for me. What did I have to lose?

Here’s what you need to start blogging:

A computer or device with an internet connection (smartphone, tablet, etc.)

An email address

A hosting account and domain name

A social media account of your choosing (I recommend Pinterest)

About an hour a week (or however much time you have to dedicate to your blog)

A Computer

You need to be able to create your blog, write blog posts, etc. You don’t technically need a computer. A smartphone or tablet will do, but it’s world’s easier with a computer or laptop.

An Email Address

I recommend you create a free email address specifically for your blog. If you get your hosting (more on this below) from this company, a domain email address is included! Score!

That means, if your blog is Cicisvegan.com then, your email address can be hello@cicisvegan.com, for example.

You’ll need an email address for things like:

Correspondence with brands, other bloggers, ad networks, and other stakeholders

Setting up social media accounts

Signing up to ad and sponsor networks

Plus, much more!

An email address is needed, for sure. Make life easier and get more organized by creating a separate email address specifically for the blog.

A Hosting Account and Domain Name

Hosting is like your power source that fuels your blog, allowing it to be online, hosted, and available to be seen by folks worldwide. It’s a must and our #1 recommendation for this hosting company.

I have created a ton of different blogs with this host and they are amazing.

Affordable monthly hosting at under $3/month

SSL certificate included

FREE domain name

1-Click WordPress install

Amazing support

And, more!

Social Media

Social media is going to help you be seen across the web. It will fuel your traffic, connect you with your audience and grow your blog.

An Hour A Week

Any amount of time you have available to dedicate to your blog every week is totally fine but we recommend at least an hour per week. In this time, you’ll be writing blog posts, monetizing and growing your blog and doing other activities to help you reach your goals.

Picking a Blog Niche

The list goes on and on. Decide from the beginning what you want your blog to be about and that will be your niche! Next, name your blog.

Naming Your Blog

This is not rocket science. Your blog name isn’t really that important, to be honest. You can name your blog your name (tons of successful bloggers do this), you can create a catchy name you love, you can keep it simple, or more extravagant. All totally your choice.

My first blog, I picked the name in like 20 minutes.

Then 2 months later I wanted to change it. Go figure.

The truth is, the name didn’t matter. It didn’t prevent me from earnings tens of thousands of dollars with that first blog (now sold) and it has not stopped me from becoming a six figure blogger.

I will share some tips to help you with the name.

Here they are:

Try to have your blog and domain name match. For example, Beautiful Travels should be at beautifultravels.com for example. Aim to have the two match as closely as possible.

Go for .com

Don’t misspell words or use slang in your name or domain

No hyphens, exclamation points or special characters

There. Now, name your blog!

Getting Hosting and Domain

Hosting and domain can be grabbed from this host. You buy the hosting and get the domain name (plus other cool perks) for FREE! I usually pick the basic or middle plan for my websites.

To start, click this link to open Bluehost hosting in a separate window. This way you can look at the instructions and signup for hosting side by side, to make it easy.

Normally $7.99/month, grab hosting for under $3 per month with this discount. Scoop it up before the price changes!

After selecting your plan, you’ll be taken to this page.

New domain: If you have a domain name you have chosen, you will select the “new domain” option

I Have a Domain Name: If you have purchased your domain separately already, you will select the “i have a domain name option”

Then, create your account and fill out the appropriate fields.

You can sign up for 12 to 36 months. I recommend the 36 month option because it saves you the most money but if you want to do 12 months, that is totally fine too. Do you need package extras?

It’s up to you but I’d recommend domain privacy.

Next, you’ll pay and complete your setup.

To make it super simple, I will share the steps down below.

Congratulations, you did it!

Adding WordPress

Bluehost has a super simple 1-Click WordPress install which adds WordPress to your account for you.

This is your blog platform so you want this, and it’s also totally FREE. WordPress will be where you write your article, add media and photos, and manage your entire blog.

Design and Content

Design is super fun. This is where you will apply a theme and make your blog pretty. Content is the meat and potatoes of your blog. It’s going to be your blog pages like:

About

Contact

Resources

FAQ

Privacy Policy

Terms and Conditions

And your blog posts, of course.

Launch

This is the end and you will launch!

When to launch your blog? I recommend launching when you have at least 5 to 20 blog posts written and ready for publishing.

This will give a good, solid base for your blog so visitors will have a nice selection of page and posts to look at when they land on your blog.

YOU CREATED YOUR BLOG, WHOOHOO!

How do you feel? Was it a breeze?

Here are some helpful resources you’ll want to check out to help you on your blogging journey:

How to Monetize Your Blog

We talked about ads, sponsorships, and some other income forms up above. Lets deep dive to go over all these, shall we?

Ads

Advertisements can be placed on your blog through ad networks. You apply to join the ad network (for free) then they approve you and you’ll get ad code to place on your blog that will display to your visitors.

You will earn money on every ad click.

The visitors that clicks the ad does not have to buy, sign up, provide their email address or anything like that, in order for you to earn.

They just have to click the ad! This is the easiest form of money for a blogger, but, it’s also the least lucrative.

In order to earn what I’d consider a full-time income ($3K+) per month, you’ll need a TON of clicks, which usually comes from receiving 100K or more monthly page views.

This can happen but it likely reaches this level of traffic for a new blog after a year or longer.

Ad networks to check out:

Google Adsense

Mediavine (apply here when you hit 25,000 monthly sessions)

Adthrive (apply here when you hit 100,000 monthly page views)

Sponsorships

Sponsorships, or brand deals are when you and a brand collaborate on a paid feature, like a:

Blog post

Video demo

Giveaway

Social media share

Email syndication

So basically, the company pays you to blog about them.

This is a lucrative form of blogging income with the potential of earning up to six figures per sponsorship.

The Kardashian sisters earn hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars for a single social media shoutout!

I’ve earned as much as $400 per sponsorship on brand new blogs, before.

You can fetch $1,000+ when you reach 100K+ monthly page views. Do not rule out this income source. I’ve seen tons of new bloggers do very well from the start and begin getting paid sponsor deals after a few months of blogging.

Products

Product income is easily the highest earning income a blogger can get.

You create and sell your own products and earn 100% of the earnings.

Examples of products to create:

Digital planners

Checklists

Digital courses

Ebooks

Services

You can offer your services too. This is another way to keep all the income coming in.

Examples of services to offer:

Consulting

Bookkeeping

Auditing

Design

Social media management

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing income comes from your product referrals that result in a sale. You earn a commission on that sale.

For example, if you refer a candy subscription box to your blog readers that earns you $5 commission on each successful sale then, 10 referrals for the month means $50 commission to you, from that program.

That may not sound like a lot but if you do the same to 10 other affiliate products, that’s $500!

Not to mention, the more your blog grows the more traffic you get and the more sales you will successfully refer to, usually.

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